


Love makes the world go round and round

by StrawberryLane



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Happy Ending, Post-Movie(s), Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 18:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9398273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Ma thinks they don't like each other.She doesn't know how often they curl up on the rickety bed in Credence's room, all three of her children, squashed together, whispering about their dreams, about a better life, about leaving."Do you think your gentleman could help?" Chastity whispers one particularly bad night when Credence got home too late and Modesty got punished for playing with the neighbor hood children.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can't write long things, apparently, so here's another short one.
> 
> Based on [this](http://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1184.html?thread=1390496#cmt1390496) prompt from the kinkmeme.

Credence often wishes he could leave. Just pack up the few things that are actually his and his alone and leave. Just walk out the door, Chastity and Modesty joining him without a word as they trudge down the street, not fearing any punishment because they are _leaving_.

That won't happen for a good while, though, because Chastity refuses to leave. "What will we do?" she asks, her brow furrowed as she bends over the embroidery she's always working on. "I know this isn't good, but we can't live on the street either. And Modesty... They'll throw her in an orphanage and forget about her in an instant, or Ma'll bring her home again, except then she won't have us to take the brunt of the punishments."

"So we'll leave New York," Credence urgently whispers while keeping an eye on the door, because Ma doesn't like it when he and Chastity disappear together and tends to come looking for them.

"Credence," Chastity says, pleading, "we can't."

So they don't leave. Credence does what he can, tries to take the blame for Modesty's and Chastity's wrongdoings whenever he can. Chastity doesn't take the blame for his wrongdoings, because she pretends to be Ma's good little girl, but she returns the favor in other ways. Tending to his injures the best she can in the dark after Ma has gone to bed, saving a few scraps from dinner to give him to eat, because Ma likes to send him to his room without supper.

She doesn't tell on him when she notices he stuffs the main part of those awful pamphlets into a bin as soon as they get out of Ma's sight. Soon, she begins to do the same. Modesty just throws hers into the air, leaving them at the mercy of the wind. Most people ignore them when they try to hand out the pamphlets anyway, some actively tries to avoid them, the crowd parting like the red sea for Moses around them.

Credence doesn't know if Chastity knows about the black thing of terror inside of him, because while he thinks Modesty suspects something isn't right, Chastity hasn't said a word.

She probably knows about Mr Graves though. She hasn't said a word about that either, not directly, but she's begun dropping hints she knows something, and covering for him when his meetings with Mr Graves delays him.

Ma thinks Chastity is the one who has something to hide, that her head has suddenly gone big, that she's meeting some man who promises her the world but is only going to let her down.

Credence wants to laugh, because Mary Lou couldn't be more wrong.

*

They don't talk about it, most of the time. During the day, in view of their mother, Chastity pretends to be the good girl, mama's perfect daughter. They keep out of each others way as much is possible. Credence pretending he was the one who accidentally dropped a pot to the floor, Chastity scolding him, voice just loud enough to carry to the other side of the church where Ma is busy checking the children they feed for witches marks.

Ma thinks they don't like each other.

She doesn't know how often they curl up on the rickety bed in Credence's room, all three of her children, squashed together, whispering about their dreams, about a better life, about leaving.

"Do you think your gentleman could help?" Chastity whispers one particularly bad night when Credence got home too late and Modesty got punished for playing with the neighbor hood children. Ma thinks they're filthy, wouldn't do a thing to help them if she didn't think they could be of use for her by finding witches.

Chastity cleans their wounds as good as she can, and Credence has an intense desire to burn his belt after seeing the lashes they left on Modesty's hands. But he doesn't, because he knows Ma would know and she would simply buy a new one and beat them even more.

"I don't know," he answers Chastity, laying awake long after she and Modesty has left for their own room, trying not to let the hope filling his chest get to him.

Wishing doesn't do any good.

*

Ma dies in December 1926, eighteen years after adopting Credence. He didn't mean for it to happen, but he couldn't just stand there and watch when she was going to punish Modesty. He'd finally had enough. Chastity, sitting at the table, almost got struck by the thing inside of him, the obscurus too, almost got hit on the head by the debris when the old church begun to fall apart around them because of Credence's anger.

But both his sisters made it out alive, he learns later.

Credence doesn't really have a clear memory of what happened after Ma hit the floor. It's in flashes – crying in the church, because he was so sure Chastity was dead and buried beneath the debris, Modesty running away as fast as she could, the obscurus breaking free because Mr Graves wasn't who he said he was, Modesty cowering in fear in her old family's home, Mr Graves thinking she was the one he was looking for, the City Hall subway tunnel.

Credence's head is pounding as he walks down the street, trying to avoid being seen. He doesn't really know why, because those people who attacked him seemed pretty confident they had destroyed him, but perhaps that is all the more reason to stay hidden.

He returns to the church, because he doesn't know what else to do. There's a crowd, a police officer standing in front of them. Credence hides as best he can in the shadows, because what if they know and they're looking for him because he killed Ma?

"It was a gas leak," the police officer says, authoritatively to the excited crowd.

"The government really ought to do something about those damn leaks," an old lady to Credence's right mutters.

The crowd beings to thin out soon after that, because another gas leak just isn't as exciting as, say, a murder.

Credence is about to turn around too, follow the general stream of people, when someone grabs his sleeve. He turns to the person, ready to claim his innocence without even knowing who the person is, when he stops and stares.

Because it's Chastity. She's crying, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks as she stares at him.

"I thought they killed you, blasted that big black cloud of smoke right out of the air!" she sobs. At his look of confusion, she continues, "I followed you. When the church fell apart I ran outside and then I followed you, but you were with that man, and I didn't want to announce myself just yet and then you turned back into smoke and then they killed you!"

"I thought you were dead," is the only thing Credence can come up with.

"I'm not. You're not."

"What are we going to do?" Credence asks her, miserably. He just feels so tired. He always feels tired, but this is something else. This is the sort of tiredness that wants to drag you down onto the ground and bury you in the soil.

"First, we find Modesty," Chastity tells him, gripping his arm tightly.

*

Modesty is still where Credence last saw her, sitting silently in a corner of a room in her family's empty house. Unlike Credence and Chastity, Modesty actually remembers her family. It's a sore subject and not something they usually speak of.

Modesty is wary of Credence at first, but flings herself at Chastity, laughing with relief because her big sister is still alive.

They stay hidden inside Modesty's old family home for almost a whole day, because it keeps raining and they don't have any other clothes or things to keep them warm than the ones they're already wearing.

No one comes looking for them, though, so it's all right.

Once it's stopped raining, and the sky is a pale blue once again, Chastity ventures outside, to find somewhere very cheap to buy something to eat, because the only money they've got is the few coins Ma gave Chastity as a reward for something or other.

When Chastity comes back, bringing a loaf of bread and a small bottle of milk along with her, they tuck into the food like starving children they are. It's nowhere near enough, but they have all had more than enough practice of ignoring that hollow feeling in their bellies.

They go back to the church, shift around the debris the best they can to find something that might be useful. No one says anything about the fact that they all stay very clearly away from the spot where Mary Lou's body landed.

In the end, they find a few of Mary Lou's hiding places intact, where she hid the money she got from donations to the church, because she was sure one of her ungrateful children would steal them otherwise. In the end, she was right, Credence muses.

They take the money and a change or two of clothes for the three of them and leaves. They don't look back.

It doesn't take long for the abandoned tenement in the Bronx to feel kind of like home. It's bare and drafty and there's dirt everywhere, but at least they're not on the street.

Chastity gets a job as a helper at a seamstress' place a few blocks over, far enough away that no one will connect her to the strange little family living in the tenement in the Bronx. Modesty, putting on her best smile, charms her way into getting old ladies to give her some money as thanks for her helping them across the road.

Credence keeps his head down as he walks down the street, still, and gets a part time job, helping out a bookbinder with whatever needs helping out.

Months go by, December turns into September without them really noticing, Credence and Chastity talking almost daily about finding something else, because this isn't a life, not really, this is just existing, when one day Credence realizes they have, collectively, made more than enough to buy three tickets of their choice and get out of town.

He turns to his sisters, eyes sparkling in a way Chastity hasn't seen in a very long time.

"What do you think about France?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
